Tag: Education in America

Christine O’Donnell – Republican Candidate for US Senate in Delaware – is correct that the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution. The phrase “right to privacy” doesn’t appear in the Constitution either. Both are concepts based on the First and the Fourth Amendments, respectively. Both have been upheld by the Supreme Court. The Constitution, also, doesn’t say anything about the government not being able to regulate health care. Yet, many Tea Party Candidates believe the Constitution forbids it.

Back to O’Donnell…

O’Donnell believes that Intelligent Design – the new phrase for creationism – should be taught in our Public Schools. Chris Coons – her Democratic opponent – disagrees. I’m with Coons. I don’t want my grandsons being taught the the world is only 6,000 years old – especially when science disagrees. If you want your child taught Intelligent Design either teach them yourselves or send them to a private school. When you talk about my tax dollars being spent, don’t spend it on faith based education.

And, that brings me to a thought about the education in America.

I read a few months ago (I believe in Bloomberg BusinessWeek , but it might’ve been Newsweek or Time ) that America has fallen way behind China and India in Mathematics, Science and Technology in our schools. I have to wonder why that isn’t part of the debate in Delaware or even Wisconsin? Why aren’t we working to make our school systems work for our young people? How is it that people can graduate from high school and barely be able to form a cognitive sentence? Aren’t we doing something wrong?

I have a dream – maybe a little crazy, but aren’t dreams supposed to be a little crazy? – that someday I could open a high school that centered around Business and Technology. My dream is to call the school the Forrest Fern Caudle Totsch School of Business and Technology – named for my late grandmother who had been a school teacher before she married my grandmother. I’d love to see the school teach students the basics: math, English and science. Then, teach students how to run projects, design software, program computers. I believe this would place them a head of their counterparts in other Industrialized nations.

An ex-co-worker of mine (from India) said that when her child reached school age, she planned on moving back to India. She said that the schools in India were far superior to the schools in America. However; she planned on sending her son back here to America to attend University, because our colleges are far superior to India’s. I found that to be quite interesting.

But, back to the debate between O’Donnell and Coons; if you read the whole article, you’ll see this line: “Both candidates suggested that the exchange showed the other didn’t understand the Constitution.” I guess we still have a long way to go to find common ground.